


The Last Thing...

by insominia



Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-18
Updated: 2015-07-18
Packaged: 2018-04-09 22:55:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4367444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insominia/pseuds/insominia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Courier tries to escape her demons, demons with a red beret and a sniper rifle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last Thing...

Darkness was falling over the Mojave. From the office she'd holed herself in at dawn, the Courier who had taken to calling herself Six; the number the closest thing she had to an identity, watched. She observed the subtle changes in the sky. The pale blue faded into swirling purples, settling on a deep midnight shade that would seep into blackness as the evening drew to a close. She knew she should probably get to disarming the traps she'd lain, but for the moment she simply couldn't find it within herself to move. She wished it was the beauty of the scene before her that held her.

She wasn't stupid and so she did not sit at the window, choosing instead to stare across the desert from a distance, sitting up on a desk on the other side of the room. For a moment, she idly wondered if this is what the remainder of her life would be reduced to; travelling by night, avoiding open spaces, keeping to buildings where she could, making for caverns, always moving, never stopping, never giving _him_ a target. With a sigh that sounded more like a groan, Six drew her legs to her chest and buried her head there.

What an idiot she'd been.

' _Hero of the wastes_ ,' they'd called her, all but rolling out the red carpet when she approached. They offered her everything they had in return for some minor errand, then marveled at her humility when she refused it. Now they called her traitor, closed their doors to her and spat on her as she passed. She traveled alone now, her friends had drifted away when they realized what she'd done, even Raul or Cass who didn't have any particular beef with the Legion had fallen away, hurt by her betrayal more than her actions.

When it became clear the people on the Strip would happily burn the Lucky 38 to the ground if they thought she was in it, she'd escaped to Freeside, hoping to lie low among the junkies and thugs, until the King himself had found her and given her one warning, for old time's sake. She could leave now, right now, or he wasn't responsible for what they did to her when they found her. She'd tried to explain herself, hoping to tell her side to at least one person and to her surprise he'd let her speak, though whether he listened, she could not say.

' _We're safe now_ ,' she'd pleaded, ' _it's tough, I know, I get it, but at least with the Legion we're safe. People were asking me to do such menial shit coz they were afraid to leave their front doors! But now, everything's better, right? You can leave your front door and not worry about getting shot up or killed by something. That's worth something...right_?' He hadn't responded, he just looked at her with his head slightly cocked as though she were a puzzle he couldn't quite unravel. Her arms had fallen at her side as she repeated the word, ' _right?_ ' as though it were her salvation. It wasn't him she was trying to convince, both of them knew it. She left Freeside that night, stealing out as the town slept, avoiding the mercenaries who would happily kill her for no reward.

That _he_ was following her, Six was certain. Of all of her companions it was Boone who had taken the news the worst, as she had known he would. ' _What's this I hear about you helping the Legion_?' he'd demanded one time, grabbing her by the throat and pinning her to the wall before she'd stepped out of the '38's elevator. She'd had one conversation with Caesar at that point, a conversation she'd very purposely kept from her companions. Not least so that this didn't happen. She'd bluffed her way out of it, convinced him that she'd been doing it to get closer to their plans, or some other bullshit. He'd let her go, ' _this stops. Now_.' He hadn't spoken to her for days. Worked for her, just meant she could sneak around easier. When the Legion had rocked up into the Strip, after the farce that was Hoover Dam, she'd gone back to her suite, dreading her reception.

Nobody met her eye. Even Arcade was silent, unable or unwilling to bend a witty remark to the situation. Boone was nowhere to be seen. Nobody told her where he'd gone. Nobody said a word about anything. Since then Six's eyes had been continually glancing back over her shoulder, as though that would help her when he decided to take his shot.

When Caesar had held a ceremony to give her that damned golden coin she'd expected it then. He'd pressed the coin into her hand and she'd closed her eyes, waiting for the inevitable pain as the bullet found her head. But the moment passed, Caesar moved away, the legionaries dispersed and life went on. Six was left, a solitary figure at the hastily constructed crimson dais, pressing the coin so hard into her palm she feared Caesar's image would forever be marked into her skin.

She almost wished the shot had come.

With the desert now in total darkness she moved to retrieve the tripwires and mines she'd laid out. Boone would never approach so directly, he didn't need to, not with his scope. But Boone wasn't the only one out for her blood. She moved slowly. She needed to vacate this place, never staying longer than one night, never leaving a trail. But there were nights, nights like this, where she just wanted to sit back and let them come.

The dull ache in her very being seemed to be dragging her down, making her movements slow and sluggish, not at all how she usually worked. She missed her friends, missed the '38, missed people liking her...she missed _him_. She missed the way they traveled in comfortable silence, missed the knowledge that he always had her back, missed the way she could make him break into a kind of half grin – the closest he ever came to smiling. And of course she missed their nights together, the long nights where neither got any sleep.

Neither had noted a particular attraction, though both would have admitted the other was easy on the eye. Even friendship would have been a stretch. They traveled together, nothing more, nothing less. Until some months into their journeys, traversing a mine neither had any business being in, a dislodged rock had fallen and Boone's arm had firmly pulled her out of it's path, straight into his chest. And they were lost in each other. Her hands around his neck, his lips claiming hers, tension they had not even known they were carrying was consummated in the darkness of the mine, against a rock that had almost killed her.

At first it had been a _thing_ , just a...thing. Something to scratch an itch, something without real feeling. But as their dealings with others put them in more and more danger, feeling became unavoidable. By the time they'd landed in the Lucky 38 they were surprisingly tender in their exertions, their sexual olympics replaced with something akin to love making. Not that either of them would ever admit to such a thing. He would never betray Carla's memory like that and Six wasn't stupid enough to open herself up to such obvious rejection. But that day in the elevator, where he'd pinned her, with such ferocity, and snarled that she stopped her dealings with the Legion, _now_ , she had known.

What the hell had she thought to happen, she cursed herself, slipping on her pack and double, triple checking the hallway. Had she honestly thought to convince him to support Caesar? Had she thought he might see things her way and forgive a life long loathing of them, putting aside his rifle to become a slave? Had she gone _actually_ insane?

God she missed him.

The metal door to the wasteland groaned under it's own weight as she gave the moonlit desert the once over. Nobody around, or at least nobody that she could see. With a deep breath, she stepped out onto the sand and started walking, her hand hovering over her holster, ready to quick-draw at a moments notice. She was heading to a cavern she knew to be nearby, Boone had always hated caverns and they did not lend themselves well to sniping.

Of these things she knew for certain.

She knew if she could make it to the caves she would be safe, from him at least, for one more night.

She knew that if she could ever talk to him, she might, just might be able to talk him out of killing her. She always could talk him around her finger, though granted that was usually in the bedroom and she doubted he would be so ready to fall with her again.

She knew that he would never let her get close enough to have that conversation.

She knew that she wouldn't be able to locate him before he found her.

She knew that although there were others hot on her tail, he would take them out if it meant saving her for himself.

From across the Mojave, shrouded in darkness, the sniper calculated her speed, watched the way she walked in a straight line and felt a grim satisfaction that she was making it easy on him.

She knew he would be the last thing she never saw.


End file.
